Excerpt from A Review of Literature on Harvesting, Handling, Storage, and Transportation of Apples, Vol. 51 The following terms in the U. 8. Standards for Apples describe the varying degrees of firmness (or ripeness) of a mature apple: (some ripening may occur while the fruit are still on the tree). Hard means apples with a tenacious flesh and starchy flavor; firm means apples with a tenacious flesh but which are becoming crisp with a slightly starchy flavor, except the Deli cious variety; firm ripe means apples with crisp flesh except that the flesh of the apples of the Gano, Ben Davis, and Rome Beauty varieties may be slightly mealy; ripe means apples with mealy flesh and soon to become soft for the variety; and overripe means apples which are dead ripe, with flesh very mealy or soft, and past commercial utility. In defining maturity as the condition of mature fruit, Lott (fig) said that maturity has no stages or degrees. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Note for the electronic edition: This draft has been assembled from information prepared by authors from around the world. It has been submitted for editing and production by the USDA Agricultural Research Service Information Staff and should be cited as an electronic draft of a forthcoming publication. Because the 1986 edition is out of print, because we have added much new and updated information, and because the time to publication for so massive a project is still many months away, we are making this draft widely available for comment from industry stakeholders, as well as university research, teaching and extension staff.